Muslim Comedy

From hijabs to jihad and everything in between - Muslims down under today. What is Halal? A country bordering Shariahland, or a method of preparing food? Do the Five Pillars of Islam comply with modern building codes? Or are they simply a philosophy for living? And if Muslims first arrived in Australia as early as 1800, can they go back to where they came from? In this funny and informative exploration of Islam in Australia, award-winning comedian and writer Sami Shah takes us behind the stereotypes....

Grounded in scholarship and bold in its aims, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam offers a striking vision of a new Muslim Identity, one which rejects once and for all the idea that Islam must be defined in opposition to the West.

Meet Osamah Sami: a schemer, a dreamer and a madcap antihero of spectacular proportions whose terrible life choices keep leading to cataclysmic consequences...despite his best laid plans to be a good Muslim boy. By the age of 13, Osamah had survived the Iran-Iraq war, peddled fireworks and chewing gum on the Iranian black market, proposed 'temporary marriage' not once but three times, and received countless floggings from the Piety Police....

How do we make sense of the Muslims of India? Do they form a political community? Does the imagined conflict between Islam and modernity affect the Muslims' political behaviour in this country? Are Muslim religious institutions-mosques and madrasas-directly involved in politics? Do they instruct...